Inca Gold - Chapter 6 - A Fortune in Emeralds

Inca Gold - Chapter

6 - A Fortune in Emeralds

Chapter 6 - A Fortune in Emeralds

A Fortune in Emeralds

The
history of emeralds is one of romance, intrigue, violence, and greed.
For untold centuries, these precious green gems have been considered the
most treasured and coveted of all jewels and they have always played an
important role in the lives of history’s most fascinating women.

Hundreds
of years before the seductive Cleopatra cast her voluptuous shadow
across the Nile, the first emeralds were found in Upper Egypt not far
from the coast of the Red Sea. As a young princess she quickly learned
that the pagan green fire of these brilliant gems had a way of bringing
out her most devilish attributes. Armed with this knowledge, once she
became Queen of Egypt, she lost no time in taking over the mines and the
available supply of emeralds for her own personal use.

Since
there were no court photographers to reproduce Cleopatra’s fatal beauty
for the edification and adoration of her legion of male admirers, she
hired skilled artisans to engrave her portrait on the surface of the
jewels and gave them as gifts to those who struck her royal fancy. At
the height of his romance with the lovely Cleo, Mark Antony is said to
have strolled openly on the streets, wearing her treasured emerald on
his forefinger, a sign to all who knew the secret of the jewel that Mark
was a man who had been places and done things.

Unlike diamonds
and rubies, there is no abundance of emeralds, and that is probably the
reason why these mystical pagan green gems are more expensive than any
other jewel. One of the largest and finest emeralds known once belonged
to the Duke of Devonshire. It was a natural crystal of the form
characteristic of emeralds, namely, a hexagonal prism with a basal
plane. This one weighed 1,350 carats and came from the Muzo mine in
Colombia.

Flawless emeralds of large size are exceedingly rare,
and because of this, very expensive. The great majority of these jewels
are crossed and bisected by tiny shadows or flaws known as “gardens”,
and this is one of the ways in which jewelers are able to distinguish
authentic emeralds from those manufactured synthetically.

Up until
recently, it was believed that true emeralds were first introduced into
Europe at the end of the sixteenth century and that they came from
South America. But this is not a fact. Emeralds have been found not only
in the caskets of Egyptian mummies, but among the ruins of two Roman
cities, Herculaneum and Pompeii. Undoubtedly, these early emeralds came
from either Egypt or the Ural Mountains of Russia, where they are still
found.

At the time of the Spanish Conquest of South America, the
Conquistadores stole hundreds, if not thousands of these precious gems
from the Incas. The jewels were used to adorn the golden idols in the
temples and palaces of the Incan aristocracy. One of the largest, found
in the forehead of their Goddess of Creation, Illa-Tica, at the Temple
of the Sun in Quito, Ecuador, was as big as an ostrich egg, dark-green
in color, and semi-polished. Although it has been said that this stone
came from a mine located in the heart of the Ecuadorian jungle, it was
never found by the Spaniards.

In Colombia, the Conquistadores were
more fortunate. The Spaniards first learned of the existence of
Colombian emeralds on 3rd March, 1537, when a gift of these precious
stones was offered to the Spaniards by the Indians who, at the same
time, pointed out the source from which these gems were derived. The
Conquistadores attempted to work the mine with Indian labor but there
were so many uprisings and attacks that the mine had to be abandoned.

About
a hundred miles distant from the original mine a second was discovered,
now known as the Muzo mine, which today still produces about ninety per
cent of the world’s finest emeralds. But here, too, the Spaniards
encountered unforeseen difficulties as the result of attacks from the
wild Muzo Indians who, for years, successfully resisted the Spanish
attempts at conquest. Even today these same Indians are a source of
continual irritation and have, on several occasions, attacked the mine,
forcing government officials to abandon the area

At the present
time, there are four emerald deposits in Colombia which are being worked
by the government, but only at the Muzo mine can one find the
dark-green to black stones which bring the best prices on the world
market. Some crystals have the peculiarity of failing to pieces, after
being taken from the mine, from no apparent cause. Methods are now being
employed to correct this disastrous situation by placing the stones,
when first uncovered, in a closed box, thus protecting them from the
action of light and allowing them to dry slowly for a few weeks.

The
world-famous Muzo mine is located approximately four hours by car, but
with an additional three hours by mule-back, from Bogota, the capital of
Colombia. The mine, itself, is surrounded by verdant green jungle hills
covered with orchids and other exotic tropical flowers. Its sheer
perpendicular cliff; about a thousand feet high and nearly a quarter of a
mile wide, is easily identified by the color of the soil, a blue-black
crumbly slate flecked with pieces of white quartz.

Each morning at
daybreak, under the watchful eyes of heavily-armed soldiers, and a
dozen or more vigilantes, the workers are lowered by ropes to the side
of the cliff and, using picks, cut away small sections of the
emerald-bearing soil which cascades to the bottom of the valley. At no
time are workers allowed to touch the soil with their hands. Later, when
mounds of earth have fallen, the workers are pulled up to the peak of
the mountain and sent back to camp for the rest of the day. The
vigilantes, pistol-bearing civilians, then proceed carefully to search
through the fallen deposits of slate but always under the watchful eyes
of the heavily-armed soldiers.

Whenever an emerald is located, the
vigilante turns the precious jewel over to his armed guard who, in
turn, hands it to the ever-present superintendent of the mine. Once a
week, the gems are sent to the government Banco de la Republica in
Bogota. Later, the gems are cut and polished before finding their way
into jewelry stores around the world.

No one knows exactly how
many emeralds still remain in this fabulous old mine which has been in
operation for hundreds of years, but the fact remains that even with the
antiquated mining methods still in practice, many precious gems are
still being taken from the crumbly black soil. In many instances, the
most beautiful stones are found attached to pieces of white quartz.

A Beautiful Specimen

But
there were still other sources of these precious stones, particularly
in Ecuador that, try as they might, the Conquistadores were never able
to locate.

Within the past few years, one of these lost emerald
mines of the Incas was actually rediscovered by an intrepid young
American explorer, by the name of Stewart Connelly.

The story of
Connelly’s harrowing adventure and of his initial success may be found
today in the archives of the Director of Mines in Quito, Ecuador. The
only known record of his almost unbelievable exploit, it consists of a
few yellowed and partially destroyed pages on which Connelly scrawled
his personal journal, and represents the key to one of the richest lost
treasures on record. For within those few short pages, Connelly
described, to the best of his ability, the exact location of the mine.

Since
his mysterious disappearance in 1924, several men had attempted to
backtrack along the route Connelly laid out, always without success.
Their failure though cannot be attributed to any deliberate intention of
Connelly to mask his trail. For one thing - and as he admits in the
journal - Connelly was never able to do more than estimate the distance
traveled, and on the return trip, having given away his compass, he
could only guess his direction For another, his state of mind at the
time of the journal’s writing accounts for certain lapses, confusions,
and ambiguities. Over-wrought by the discovery of one of the world’s
richest treasures, and crazed by a nightmarish trip through the Amazon
jungle, Connelly could hardly have been expected to submit an orderly
and comprehensive report.

For all the unexplained aspects of
Connelly’s story, two things are indisputable: that he did stumble on to
an immense emerald mine some two hundred and ninety miles from Quito,
and that he returned from the jungle with a dozen of the most perfect
emeralds ever seen. The journal, despite its feverish quality, spells
out in enough detail the location of the mine, its approaches and
surrounding terrain, to leave no doubt concerning Connelly’s having been
there.

A careful reading of the journal reveals something of
Connelly’s background and the determination which led him on a one-man
expedition into the green hell of the Amazon.

Stewart Connelly was
born on 9th December, 1899, in a small town in southern Illinois. He
enlisted in the Army upon graduation from high school and served in an
infantry unit during World War I. After the war, he secured an overseas
discharge and spent the next few years wandering through Europe, finally
settling in Madrid.

With time on his hands, Connelly began
spending his days in the Biblioteca Nacional, delving into the many
volumes on Pizarro’s conquest of the Incas. Fascinated by the exploits
of Pizarro and by the immense treasures he and his Conquistadores had
shipped back to Spain, Connelly pored over every available book on the
subject. After some weeks, and quite by accident, he found one that
changed the entire course of his life. A small volume, written by the
monk, Sanchez, one of the friars who accompanied Pizarro’s expedition,
it told of seven huge emeralds, given as a token of friendship by
Atahualpa, last Emperor of the Incas, to the Conquistador, shortly after
he had disembarked from his ship in a small Pacific port in Northern
Ecuador.

It was the first time that Connelly had come across any
mention of Inca emeralds and the subject of these scintillating gems
intrigued him. The padre’s book described how Pizarro had learned of the
existence of the jewels on that sunny morning when Atahualpa sent his
emissaries to welcome the Conquistadores and present Pizarro with the
seven large emeralds.

Pizarro, the monk wrote, had turned to him
after the delegation had left, saying: “These I will send to our King as
a gift of my undying esteem, but to you, padre, falls the task of
learning the source of these magnificent stones. I want not seven, but
seven hundred - yes, seven thousand - because in these,” he said as he
tapped the stones with his forefinger, “is the real treasure of the
Incas. Give me their emeralds, padre, and you can have their gold!”

Although
Sanchez tried desperately to learn the secret of the hidden mines, he
failed miserably. As the months passed, the Incas were put to torture,
quartered, boiled in oil and massacred, but none ever divulged the exact
location of the mountain of green gold. All that Sanchez could learn
was that the mine lay deep within the impene¬trable Jungles of Ecuador,
north by east of Quito, near what is now the Colombian-Ecuadorian
border.

This was enough for Connelly. The monk’s story and the
dream of green treasure began to obsess him and he read the padre’s book
not once, but a dozen times. He had practically memorized it when he
decided to try what no other white man had ever succeeded in doing -
find the lost emerald mine of the Incas.

With limited funds,
Connelly worked his way to Guaya¬quil, Ecuador’s major seaport, and then
traveled to Quito by train. Living in an adobe hut on the outskirts of
the city, he spent the next few weeks poring over the old maps in
various government offices.

Then, with his last remaining sucres,
he made a purchase which, to any reasonable man, could only seem a sign
of insanity, but which was part and parcel of a plan that had been
forming in his mind. It was a stab in the dark, he knew, but that bamboo
flute could be the key that would open the door to the world’s most
fabulous lost treasure.

Night after night, long after his Indian
neighbors had retired, Connelly sat on the dirt floor of his hut and
practiced blowing weird, outlandish notes on the flute. Only after
several weeks of experimentation, when he was completely satisfied that
he had mastered the instrument, did he forsake Quito and travel eastward
by mule, through the high snow-capped Andes towards the im¬penetrable
jungle Oriente—and, he hoped, emeralds!

As months passed, and no word filtered back from the gangling gringo, Stewart Connelly was completely forgotten.

But
early one morning, nine months after his strange disappearance, two
Spanish padres, at their missionary outpost at Ahuana, on the Rio Napo,
rubbed their eyes in disbelief as they saw a bearded, completely naked
white man desperately swimming across the turbulent river. He reached
the bank and collapsed, and the two monks hurried to his side and
carried him to the safety of their mission.

Connelly remained
unconscious for several days and during his delirium, talked in a
strange Indian dialect; one not even the padres could understand. When
he finally regained consciousness, he obsessively clutched a small
leather bag knotted around his neck. And never, in all the weeks of his
recuperation, were the monks able to get a word from him on what
happened during his jungle trek.

On the morning of his departure
for Quito, however, he opened the leather bag and shook out a beautiful
dark green emerald of magnificent lustre and color, weighing some fifty
carats. Placing the precious gem carefully in the palm of the mission’s
rector, Connelly told him quietly that it was a gift to the mission for
having saved his life. Then, without another word, he turned and
disappeared along a narrow trail which followed the river in the
direction of Quito.

At this point, Stewart Connelly’s wildest
dreams had come to fruition. In the little leather bag around his neck
were a dozen emeralds with a total value of several thousand dollars. It
was to be some weeks, though, before the world heard the news of his
fantastic find. This occurred in the early part of 1925 when he made a
sudden and unexpected appearance at the office of the Director of Mines
in Quito, and asked for permission to file his claim But before the
Ecuadorian government could pronounce his claim valid, a proper legal
description of the location of the mine had to be furnished This proved a
stumbling block for Stewart Connelly He carefully explained that while
he knew the approximate location and the general area of the emerald
mine, it was impossible for him to describe accurately the exact site,
for the simple reason that the region was still unexplored and had never
been surveyed. Nor did he know the names of the various rivers which he
had traveled while seeking his goal.

It was finally agreed,
however, that if Connely, to the best of his ability, would write a
detailed description covering his exploits from the time he left Quito
to his miraculous return to the small mission at Ahuana, the Ecuadorian
Government would grant him a temporary concession to be finalized later
by a more concise topographical description when that became possible.

“From
my studies in Spain,” the report begins, “I had learned that for a
White man to enter the forbidden territory of certain savage Indian
tribes where, according to Spanish historians, the lost emerald mine of
the Incas was presumed to exist, was not only impractical, but in all
known instances, fatal. I, therefore, decided to enter the jungle in
such a manner as to make the Indians believe I was demented. For some
strange reason, jungle savages have in the past befriended and at times
revered crazy men, and I hoped that the little bamboo flute I carried
would serve to set me apart from normal people. No sooner had I crossed
the Rio Napo and entered the deep jungle than I began blowing the flute,
sending crazy staccato notes through the stillness of the green
wilder¬ness. I blindly followed a dozen or more trails, but using my
compass, always walked in a north-easterly direction.

For several
days, Connelly kept on his predetermined course, covering an average of
two miles an hour. As he worked his way deeper into the interior, he saw
thousands of monkeys playing and chattering in the tree tops; exotic
plumaged birds crossed his path, and occasionally, he picked up the
trail of a jaguar. But there were no human beings. He was utterly alone
in the vast wilderness, a solitary figure fighting for survival against
the forces of nature.

It was towards noon of the ninth day that he
saw his first human creatures. Evil-looking, pygmy-like in appearance,
with long black hair streaming down over their shoulders and wearing
only narrow loin-cloths made from animal skins, they surrounded him,
their deadly blow-guns aimed menacingly in his direction. Comely
realized that the critical moment - the moment for which he had so long
rehearsed and prepared - had finally arrived. Putting the bamboo flute
to his lips, he blew a series of shrill, discordant notes, occasionally
uttering shrieks of demented laughter and trying his best to look mad.
The Indians’ eyes grew wide in amazement, and finally, they lowered
their blowguns. For the moment, Connelly was safe. They hustled him down
a narrow trail, but all the while, Stewart kept on blowing his flute,
stopping now and then to break into another wild shriek. Two hours
later, they arrived at the village, which consisted of a dozen or more
palm-thatched pono-wood huts. Stewart was immediately surrounded by the
serious-faced men and women of the tribe, who watched his antics with
unconcealed fear.

While the men were small and ugly, the women of
the tribes were extraordinary beautiful, with long, black hair worn in
page-boy style, wide brown eyes, and sensuous lips. Their bosoms were
bared, their breasts pert and full. After a long conference between the
witch doctor and several of the warriors, Connelly was escorted with
dignity into one of the huts, and moments later, three beautiful Indian
girls served him food - papayas, oranges, and a freshly fried fish. When
he had finished eating, they handed him a coconut shell containing a
vile alcoholic brew, which he downed without flinching.

Stewart’s
theory of faking insanity among these savages had proved correct, and he
became a demi-god to the Indians whom he later learned were the
Corinahuas, a nomadic tribe who roamed across the vast reaches of the
Amazon in their eternal quest for food. Soon, Connelly shed his garments
of civilization, adopted their manner of dress, and became, in the
months that followed, one of their best hunters.

Like many other
South American Indian tribes, the Corinahuas practised polygamy and
since Connelly was considered as one set apart, he was offered his
choice of any of their women. He chose only three - Shirma, a sloe-eyed,
raven-haired beauty whose conical-shaped breasts particularly intrigued
him; Dayuma, a long-limbed sultry charmer whose pouting lips were made
for kissing; and Tumwa, a fifteen-year-old wench whose sexual hunger was
insatiable. The women literally threw themselves at Stewart, possibly
because of his height and strength, and because of their curious desire
to make love to a white man, especially one they thought “holy”.

Comely
could have remained with the Corinahuas for the rest of his life, but
through all the tempestuous weeks that followed, he never for one moment
forgot the green, sparkling emeralds he hoped one day to find - those
emeralds which would make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

Altogether,
Connelly lived with the Corinahuas for three months. He learned their
native dialect, and his proficiency with the blowgun was phenomenal.
During his many discourses with the witch doctor and other warriors, he
discovered that far to the north-east lived a particularly savage tribe
of Indians known as the Orijones - so ferocious indeed that none of the
Corinahuas ever ventured into their territory. They were deadly enemies
and fought to the death upon sight.

The Orijones practiced acts of
unparalleled cruelty and Connelly was almost tempted to back-track to
civilization and abandon his quest for the green, shimmering stones. But
a compelling force drove him on. And so, early one morning, using the
pretext of a hunting expedition, he left the village and set out to the
north-east where either sudden death or green gold awaited him

On
the afternoon of the fifth day, Comely discovered footprints on the wet
trail and followed them cautiously Somewhere in the immediate vicinity,
Connelly knew he would find a village and that within the next few
hours, his fate would be decided. Carefully concealing his blow¬gun and
quiver of poisoned darts in some nearby bushes, he inched his way
forward through the dense underbrush. Moments later, he came to a small
clearing. Dead ahead was a narrow river, its rushing waters brown with
sedi¬ment. On the wide, grey banks were dozens of ferocious black
crocodiles, gigantic monsters that lay quiet as death.

Just
beyond the river was an Indian village consisting of dozens of crude,
palm-thatched shacks scattered around a clearing Stewart lay on his
belly at the edge of the jungle and studied the scene carefully. Fifty
or more squat, completely nude men, women, and children were milling
around the huts. They more closely resembled anthropoid apes than
humans. Their arms were long and hung almost to their knees, their
massive heads were bullet-shaped and their torsos thick and ugly

In
the centre of the village, a group of women clustered about a
smouldering fire, into which one of them had thrust a large, feathered
canari, or jungle turkey. She turned it over until the carcass became
black and most of the feathers had been eaten away by the flames. Then
suddenly they began tearing the raw bird apart, biting off huge chunks
of bloody flesh, consuming it ravenously, and pausing now and then to
wipe their bloody hands across their dirty brown bodies. It was a
revolting spec-tacle, but now it was easy to understand why this
barbaric tribe was prone to torture its enemies and inflict upon them
inhuman and sadistic deaths. But one thought kept running through
Connelly’s mind - the more savage the human beast, the more susceptible
to superstition and magic. Stewart clutched his bamboo flute and
silently prayed that it would do its job a second time.

Scurrying
about on his hands and knees, Connelly quickly located a barbasco bush,
the juice of which, he had learned from the Corinahuas, was particularly
obnoxious to crocodiles. Pulling gently at the plant, he unearthed its
roots, and carefully wiped his body with the juice. Then silently, he
crawled on his belly across the broad, clay bank and disappeared under
the murky waters of the stream. Several times he touched the cold, slimy
bodies of half-submerged crocs, and expected momentarily to be attacked
and devoured. But the odor of the barbasco turned them away. Reaching
the bank nearest the village, he arose slowly, water dripping off his
long hair and beard, and then, putting the flute to his lips, blew a
series of weird, shrill notes that quickly brought every Indian to his
feet. Like Poseidon, mythical Greek god of the sea, he emerged slowly
from the water, alternately shouting at the top of his voice, and then
blowing his flute. Their reaction was everything he had hoped for. Some
of the Indians scattered and ran into the jungle, while others
prostrated themselves before him. Later, after winning their confidence,
Comely announced that he was “God of the Crocodiles”, and warned that
those who disobeyed his orders would be tossed into the water where his
scaly “brothers” were waiting. For the moment, at least, Connelly was in
command, worshipped by the entire tribe.

For all his apparent
success, he lived constantly on the edge of danger. A lesser man would
have succumbed instantly to any of a dozen terrifying situations that
Connelly faced and ultimately overcame. To illustrate one of the most
extreme of these incidents Connelly wrote in his journal:

“Life
with this primitive, savage tribe drove me nearly to the brink of
insanity. I had to keep up my masquerade as the wielder of supernatural
powers and could never forget for a moment that I had to live and act as
one demented. I soon learned, however, that I had one enemy - Uajai,
the witch doctor and the most powerful man in the village. He was a
shrewd, cold, calculating individual and knew that he would have to kill
me or lose his high position. There was but one thing left to do -
challenge him to a fight to the death, to take place in the river.

“Early
one morning I quickly disappeared into the jungle and again rubbed the
juice of the deadly barbasco root over my face and body Whether or not
Uajai knew the same trick was questionable, but judging from the low
mentality of the tribe, I doubted it After all, this particular tribe of
Orijones was on the bottom rung of the ladder of civilization and had
not as yet learned how to make or use blowguns, or even simple bows and¬
arrows They relied solely upon crudely-made lances for all of their
hunting and warfare”

As the sun came up over the outer rim of the
jungle, Uajai and Connelly, followed silently by the Indians of the
village, walked to the edge of the river and dived beneath the swirling
waters. Connelly had counted on his superior strength and height for
quick victory, but Uajai, slippery as an eel, circumvented his direct
approach and Connelly quickly found himself encompassed in the witch
doctor’s powerful arms. With his breath slowly being squeezed out of his
body, and on the verge of unconsciousness, Connelly saw a flash of grey
rise from the river’s bottom, and Uajai’s hold upon him was broken.
Connelly struggled weakly to the surface as the Indians, watching on the
bank, shrieked. For, at that moment, the legs of their witch doctor
broke the surface of the water, and fastened to his thigh was the long,
ugly snout of a giant crocodile! An instant later, both croc and man
disappeared as pools of blood spread over the water. The battle was
over, and from that day on, Stewart Connelly became tribal chief of the
Orijones.

Now that his position was secure, Comely took to
roaming the countryside in hope of finding some evidence of the emerald
mine, but always without success.

Just before the rainy season,
the Orijone warriors were accustomed to going on a protracted hunt for
game - deer, bear, tapir and other edible animals, which were smoked and
set aside to be used when the rivers rose and hunting and fishing
became impossible. Generally, the men hunted in pairs, and on this
occasion, Comely took as his companion Katuku, a young warrior who was
well acquainted with the Rain Forest.

It was the luckiest move Connely could have made for Katuku, indirectly, was to lead him to his long-sought destination.

Regarding the discovery and exact location of the emerald mine, Comely said in his diary:

“As
the crow flies, it was my impression that I was about one hundred air
miles from Puerto Napo, the small village on the banks of the Napo
river, which had been my starting point. By following trails, however, I
gauged the distance to be exceedingly more, and guessed that I had
covered probably two or three hundred land miles. The village of the
Orijones lay on a bend of a river which they called the “Numba”, meaning
in their dialect “River of Blood”. The terrain in the immediate
vicinity was hilly, and farther to the east were huge black cliffs,
while in the distance lay a series of irregularly-shaped snow-capped
peaks.

“For two days, Katuku and I traveled eastward where,
according to him, the best hunting grounds were to be found. On the
morning of the third day, we came into the black, barren hills and,
following a rock-strewn valley, suddenly were confronted by a tremendous
precipice of black, crumbly slate flecked with large pieces of white
quartz. We stopped momentarily at the foot of the cliff, and as I
carelessly scanned the ground, I knew that I had reached the end of my
search, for there, scattered among the white stones, were dozens - yes,
hundreds - of green, sparkling gems - emeralds!”

A Handful of Green

Katuku
was quite indifferent to the fortune which lay at their feet. Casually,
Connelly picked up a few gems of the deepest green color and placed
them in a small fibre shoulder-bag used by the Indians for carrying food
while hunting. Through a kindly fate, Stewart Connelly had discovered
one of the richest treasures in the world.

Two days later, they
returned to the village bringing with them a 200-pound tapir. That
night, as they gorged themselves on broiled tapir steaks and chicha, a
native brew, Connelly committed his first and almost-fatal error.
Half-drunk and feeling tremendously elated over his secret, he gave his
small hand-compass to Katuku, who had admired it for weeks. Its
quivering needle, pointing always to the north, would make Katuku an
important man in the tribe.

For Connelly there was now but one
thing to do - he must take his green treasures back to civilization,
convert part of them into cash, and return again with pack mules and
enough proper equipment to strike it really rich.

Two hours before
sunrise, he left the hut and crawled out into the darkness. Moments
later, he disappeared into the midnight black of the jungle. By noon of
the following day he realized, to his horror, that he was hopelessly
lost. For weeks he wandered aimlessly through the wilderness trying to
fix his course by the path of the sun. He was reduced to eating roots,
herbs, anything to fill the gnawing hunger of his empty stomach. It was
only by a miracle that he finally emerged at the banks of the Rio Napo
and far across the river, saw the tiny wooden church of the missionary
fathers.

Although kept secret by the Director of Mines, news of
the emerald strike soon leaked out and Connelly was besieged by an army
of treasure hunters and mercenaries, all of whom wanted to accompany him
on his journey back to the lost mine.

Disposing of a few of his
emeralds for a fabulous price, Stewart spent a part of the proceeds in
outfitting a carefully selected band of do-or-die adventurers for his
return trip to the emerald mine. Forgotten was the bamboo flute. After
all, he was still the witch doctor, and anticipated no trouble. His
followers, however, were of a different opinion. Refusing to go into the
jungle without protection, they fortified their bravery with shotguns,
pistols, even antique muzzle-loaders - almost every type of weapon
available.

With six pack mules and enough food and ammunition to
last several months, Connelly and his desperate band of followers left
Quito, and headed eastward over the Andes in the direction of Puerto
Napo. They reached that small pueblo ten days later, and after a short
rest, moved out into the deep interior. Days and weeks turned into
months, and months into years, but Stewart Connelly and his private army
were never seen again. The hungry jungle had swallowed them up, and to
this day, their fate remains one of the great mysteries of Amazonian
jungle lore.

Ten years after their disappearance, with Connelly
and his followers presumed dead, his report was made public. However,
all but the hardiest of adventurers have refrained from searching for
Connelly’s lost emerald mine. Although many years have passed, the
inscrutable jungle still holds the same dangers and terrors - savage
Indians even today threaten strangers who enter their territory - the
rivers and streams still abound in ugly crocodiles, and vast areas
remain unexplored and unknown to the white man.

With a little
bamboo flute, and great ingenuity, Stewart Connelly unlocked the secret
of one of the world’s greatest treasures, only to falter as greed
overcame wisdom and force replaced cunning.